Welcome aboard, train wreck!
Here we are. The final seven October releases for cozy mysteries. There is something for everything with these books. I think that’s why I love cozies so much. Whatever your niche is, you will find a cozy mystery series for it.
If this is your first time here, welcome aboard, train wreck. Glad to have you here. If this isn’t your first time here, I’m still glad to have you. Please like, comment, share, and subscribe. My goal is to have five hundred subscribers by the end of the year. I think we can make that happen. As always, I will link the books and where you can buy them. When you use my links to buy, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps me buy more books to read and review. And coffee and wine for the rest of my time that isn’t reading. So, thank you.
Without further ado, on to the list.
Mango, Mambo, and Murder (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery) by Raquel V. Reyes
Book release date – October 12, 2021
From the Amazon description –
Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith becomes a seasoned sleuth in Raquel V. Reyes’s Caribbean Kitchen Mystery debut, a savory treat for fans of Joanne Fluke and Jenn McKinlay.
Food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith’s move from New York to Coral Shores, Miami, puts her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son. Adding to her funk is an opinionated mother-in-law and a husband rekindling a friendship with his ex. Gracias to her best friend, Alma, she gets a short-term job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV show. But when the newly minted star attends a Women’s Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad, never to nibble again.
When a second woman dies soon after, suspicions coalesce around a controversial Cuban herbalist, Dr. Fuentes–especially after the morning show’s host collapses while interviewing him. Detective Pullman is not happy to find Miriam at every turn. After he catches her breaking into the doctor’s apothecary, he enlists her help as eyes and ears to the places he can’t access, namely the Spanish-speaking community and the tawny Coral Shores social scene.
As the ingredients to the deadly scheme begin blending together, Miriam is on the verge of learning how and why the women died. But her snooping may turn out to be a recipe for her own murder.
About Raquel V. Reyes
Raquel V. Reyes writes stories with Latina characters. Her Cuban-American heritage, Miami, and the Caribbean feature prominently in her work. Raquel is a co-chair for SleuthFest and a board member of the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Her short story “A Star Goes Dark” is in the 15th Malice Domestic anthology.
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3COPZMY
Mulled to Death (A Colorado Wine Mystery Book 3) by Kate Lansing
Book release date – October 19, 2021
From the Amazon description –
A Valentine’s Day getaway is on the rocks when a young winemaker discovers a body at an alpine resort in this delightful cozy mystery.
When Parker Valentine decides to take a weekend getaway with her boyfriend Reid, a ski trip seems like the perfect choice. Between hitting the slopes and persuading the resort’s wine director to sell her mulled wine, Parker is eager to mix business with pleasure. But her plans are muddled when she finds the resort owner’s body on a treacherous portion of ski trail near the resort.
As a result, not only is Parker’s romantic weekend thrown into chaos, but now that the owner has died, her business deal is due for a frosty reception, and her life might be in danger as well. After a series of unfortunate mishaps befall Parker, she realizes that whoever killed the resort owner might want to tie up loose ends. Parker’s going to need all of the investigative skills at her disposal to catch a killer before they put her on ice.
About Kate Lansing
Kate Lansing is an award-winning short story author. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, daughter, and a chair-napping tabby cat named Maple.
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3icKLmc
To buy the series for Kindle e-book, click here. https://amzn.to/3F7Ijrh
Murder at the Mistletoe Ball (A Ferrara Family Mystery Book 6) by J.D. Griffo
Book release date – October 26, 2021
From the Amazon description –
Christmas in Tranquility, New Jersey, means togetherness for the Italian-American Ferrara family—and an unexpected reunion for Alberta Scaglione. But someone has murder on their holiday wish list . . .
Alberta is delighted that her estranged daughter has arrived in Tranquility, even if Lisa Marie has an ulterior motive. Her son, Alberta’s twenty-one-year-old grandson, Sergio, hasn’t been heard from in six months, shortly after taking up with a woman named Natalie. Maybe Alberta and her crime- reporting partner-in-sleuthing granddaughter, Jinx, can track him down before Christmas?
After some fruitless searching, the Ferraras take a break to attend the Mistletoe Ball, a fundraiser for the local hospital. But the night takes a chilling turn when a snowman decoration splits open, revealing a body. Lisa Marie screams that it’s Natalie—and screams again when she sees a man emerge from behind some Christmas trees. The good news is they’ve found Sergio. The bad news: he’s a prime suspect for murder.
It seems Sergio’s former squeeze had some shady secrets. And with more than one family member’s future at stake, Alberta and Lisa Marie will have to put their past behind them and work together, or it’ll be a blue, blue Christmas . . .
Includes Italian recipes from Alberta’s kitchen!
“Imagine the Golden Girls starting a detective agency and you’ll get the general idea of J.D. Griffo’s charming Ferrara Family mystery series.”
—Criminal Element
About Michael Griffo
IT’S TIME TO GET COZY!
I’m now writing a cozy mystery series under the pen name, J.D. GRIFFO. The first book, MURDER ON MEMORY LAKE, was published in August 2018 and the second, MURDER IN TRANQUILITY PARK, will be released in March 2019. The third entry, MURDER AT ICICLE LODGE, will be available in late 2019.
The series focuses on the Italian-American Ferrara Family and the murder mysteries they solve in the idyllic lakeside community of Tranquility, New Jersey – which is also a hotbed for homicidal activity! Led by 64-year-old Alberta Ferrara Scaglione and her granddaughter, Jinx Maldonado, they have formed the unofficial Ferrara Family Detective Agency along with Alberta’s older and crankier sister, Helen, an ex-nun, and her sister-in-law, Joyce, a former Wall Street wizard. Together, the group of fearless ladies will do whatever it takes to take down the baddies.
It’s fun, it’s suspenseful, and it’s 100% Italian!
MOONGLOW has arrived! Book one in The Darkborn Legacy is finally here.
Dominy Robineau’s life changes on her 16th birthday – and not in a good way. She wakes up next to the dead body of her best friend, Jess, and uncovers that she has fallen victim to a family curse. Together with her boyfriend, Caleb, and best friends, Archie and Arla, she has to figure out how to break the spell before someone else dies. They also have to deal with the new twins who just moved to town. Do Nadine and Napoleon hold the key to unlocking the mystery to Dominy’s survival? Or are they part of the dark forces working to destroy Dominy’s life as well?
Find out the answers in MOONGLOW and the next two books in the series -SUNBLIND and STARFALL.
Read my latest interview at YoungAdultMagazine.com! http://www.youngadultmag.com/Browse/Article/1804/Michael-Griffo-discusses-how-he-bites-his-teeth-into-the-Archangel-Series
Check out two new books available at Smashwords – HOLD BACK THE NIGHT – Dark Shadows meets Knots Landing! and PEN PALS – based on my mother’s real-life 60+ year relationship with her British pen pal. http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MichaelGriffo
Michael Griffo was born, raised, and has since relocated to New Jersey. He is an award-winning playwright and all of his plays have been produced throughout the country and in London. Two of his plays — CLOUDY and 5G/10B — have been published in Smith & Kraus’s Best 10 Minute Plays for 2 Actors: 2005 and CLOUDY is licensed by Playscripts, Inc.
UNNATURAL is the first book of the Archangel Academy series that will also include UNWELCOME and UNAFRAID. UNNATURAL is a young adult novel that explores the relationship of two young outcasts who meet at an all boy’s boarding school in north western England. Set against a backdrop of vampires and the supernatural, it is a coming of age story that young and old alike will be able to relate to.
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3ufmmRX
To buy the series for Kindle e-book, click here. https://amzn.to/3idzr9A
No Memes of Escape (A Brooklyn Murder Mystery Book 2) by Olivia Blacke
Book release date – October 5, 2021
From the Amazon description –
Amateur sleuth Odessa Dean is about to discover the only thing harder than finding her way out of an escape room is finding an affordable apartment in Brooklyn in this sequel to Killer Content.
Odessa Dean has made a home of Brooklyn. She has a fun job waiting tables at Untapped Books & Café and a new friend, Izzy, to explore the city with. When she’s invited on a girls’ day out escape room adventure, she jumps at the chance. It’s all fun and games until the lights come on and they discover one of the girls bludgeoned to death…
The only possible suspects are Odessa and the four other players that were locked in the escape room with the victim. She refuses to believe that one of them is responsible for the murder, despite what the clues indicate. In between shifts at the café, Odessa splits her time interviewing the murder suspects, updating the bookstore’s social media accounts, and searching for the impossible–an affordable apartment in Brooklyn.
But crime–and criminally high rent–waits for no woman. Can Odessa clear her and Izzy’s names before the police decide they’re guilty?
About Olivia Blacke
Brooklyn Murder Mysteries author Olivia Blacke writes quirky, unconventional, character-driven cozy mysteries. After shuffling around the U.S.A. from Hawaii to Maine, she currently resides with her husband and their roly-poly rescue puggle, but is forever homesick for NYC. In addition to writing, disappearing into a good book, and spending way too much time on social media, she enjoys SCUBA diving, crocheting, collecting tattoos, and baking dog cookies.
She loves listening to music while she writes (usually P!nk or NIN), is obsessed with Groot, and her favorite season is Hockey. Social media links, blog, and up-to-date news is found at: OliviaBlacke.com
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3zSC1ba
To buy the series for Kindle e-book, click here. https://amzn.to/2XOZUmu
Once Upon a Seaside Murder (A Beach Reads Mystery Book 2) by Maggie Blackburn
Book release date – October 12, 2021
From the Amazon description –
As the holidays approach, bookstore owner Summer Merriwether learns a dark secret in this second volume of Maggie Blackburn’s Beach Reads mystery series.
There’s no place like home for the holidays, even if home is sleepy, beachside Brigid’s Island, NC. During this season for giving, the town wakes up to a welcome throng of shoppers–and Beach Reads is no exception. But bookseller Summer Merriwether’s Christmas cheer turns to cringing fear when she uncovers a deadly secret about her late mother–a secret someone will kill to keep.
When the local library hosts a cozy mystery panel discussion, Summer learns that one of the authors on the panel based her book on an actual murder that shook Brigid’s Island thirty-five years before. Worse, she soon learns that her dearly missed mother, Hildy, took a disturbingly deep interest in the case, going so far as to collect clippings and keep a journal of the dark doings. This doesn’t jibe with Summer’s memories of her usually cheery mother at all.
Tidings get worse when Summer learns of her long-lost biological family’s involvement in the crime…and still worse when the life of the book’s author is threatened. With the help of Hildy’s plucky book club, Summer puts her scholarly smarts to work on protecting the cozy author and solving the decades-old murder.
But this ghost from Christmas past may still be deadly in the present, and if she can’t find the killer, Summer’s future will be brief.
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3ufm9OG
To buy the series for Kindle e-book, click here. https://amzn.to/3oaDUxp
Strawberries and Crime: A Finn Family Farm Mystery by Elle Brooke White
Book release date – October 12, 2021
From the Amazon description –
In Elle B. White’s delightful second Finn Family Farm mystery, farmer Charlotte Finn and her sleuthing baby pig are neck-deep in strawberries and crime.
Things are finally growing smoothly on the Finn Family Farm. With the help of caretakers Joe and Alice Wong and farmer Samuel Brown, Charlotte Finn is starting to feel at home at the Santa Barbara County produce farm she inherited. But all is not strawberries and cream: A blight is destroying young berry plants. Worse, another mysterious death is shaking Little Acorn.
The victim is grizzled, cantankerous Linc Pierce, the only farmer in Little Acorn whose strawberry crop was fruitful. Charlotte and her old friend Beau Mason find him hanging from the rafter, an apparent suicide. But a cursory search turns up a half-eaten sandwich. Who eats before he kills himself?
Chief Goodacre suspects foul play. Her prime suspect is Beau, who exchanged words–and worse–with Linc earlier in the day. Meanwhile, Little Acorn’s farmers point accusing fingers at one another, recalling Linc’s suggestion that someone sabotaged their strawberries. As Charlotte searches for clues to exonerate Beau, she finds something on Linc’s workbench not buried in dust. Could this be why Linc’s strawberry plants are alive? And, perhaps, why Linc is dead?
Now, if Charlotte and Horse–the farm’s baby pig with a bottomless stomach and an insatiable hunger for sleuthing–can’t root out the murderer, they, too, may end up dead and berried.
About Elle Brooke White
About the Author
Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Elle Brooke White became a world traveler at a young age when her family moved to Europe. She grew up in Paris, Brussels and London until returning to the US to attend Vassar College. She then moved to New York City with the hopes of becoming a renowned actress but took a job in advertising– as Elle says “just until.” But it was time for her to return to “a world of pure imagination”. Now Elle lives in Southern California with her famous diving dog, Bardot.
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3m35zOi
To buy the series for Kindle e-book, click here. https://amzn.to/2XRPzGy
Resort at Castaway Bay: Trick or Treat by Kathi Daley
Book release date – October 26, 2021
From the Amazon description –
Sydney Whitmore, a forensic psychologist, moves to Shipwreck Island and renews her relationship with Ezra Reinhold, a reclusive billionaire who enjoys poking around in cold cases and has the means to hire the best people to find the answers no one else has been able to.
In book 3 in the series, it’s Halloween and Sydney joins Ezra and his group as they take on an old murder case where the suspected killer has been caught and convicted although Ezra has reason to believe he may be innocent as he has claimed from the beginning.
Meanwhile, Sam asks Syd and Kelly for input on a case, Syd’s friend Riley comes home after months in the hospital with a tale of a coverup, Emily is faced with a nearly impossible decision, Rory has puppies to foster, and Logan settles into life on the island.
Bonus Material: Text and photos for Emily by the Sea and Emily’s Kitchen contributed by Christy Turner
About Kathi Daley
USA Today Bestselling Author Kathi Daley lives in the beautiful alpine community of Lake Tahoe with her husband Ken. When she’s not writing she enjoys hanging out on the beach with her children and grandchildren. During the summer she enjoys hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, wakeboarding, and sunset cruises on the lake. During the winter she enjoys cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and curling up by a fire with a good book.
Kathi uses her mountain home as inspiration for her books, all which include appearances by the wildlife she shares her life with.
For weekly updates and contests sign up for her newsletter The Daley Weekly at (http://eepurl.com/NRPDf)or by accessing the link on her Facebook page or website.
To learn more about the author and their other works, click here. https://amzn.to/3uiXlW7
To buy the series for Kindle e-book, click here. https://amzn.to/2XRPPFw
Well, there you have them. The October cozy mystery release list. There are so many good stories that are continuing. And the good thing with cozies is you can pick them up in the middle of a series and not get lost.
Again, if you like what I post, please like, comment, share, and subscribe. If you read any of the books listed, please let me know what you thought of it. That’s all I’ve got for today, train wrecks. All aboard.
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The Glorious Train Wreck Mom 
I think ‘Once Upon a Seaside Murder’ caught my interest the most.. but they all sound like good, entertaining reads. Great post and thanks so much for sharing it!
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Let me know if you read seaside murder. It does sound very intriguing.
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I’ll do that! I tried to kept my eye out for it today but no luck.. I’m not supposed to be buying more books until I read some of the stack I have, though, so.. maybe it’s for the best. 🤭😅
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I mean what’s a book stack for but to grow bigger
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Lol! You might be right because is sure as heck isn’t getting any smaller!
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Every time I do a new book list, my TBR gets higher
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I was wondering why I felt shorter. 🤔
Happy reading and have a beautiful weekend!
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Good blog you have got here.. It’s difficult to find high quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you! Take care!!
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